Montessori Lessons, Ideas and More…

Does your child want to learn how to draw or is he already a budding artist? Sharon Jeffus has created two newsletters that will help experienced artists and novices alike. Excellent step-by-step directions, diagrams and commentary will help your child build the skills he needs to get started. Discover some excellent art history lesson plans as well. These newsletters are absolutely FREE! Visit

Make some beautiful Christmas memories. This year, under your supervision, involve your children in making Christmas ornaments. I know…. I can just hear you now. I agree that the holiday season is probably one of the most hectic times of the year. And, a lot of the responsibilities are placed on the lady of the house. However, if you enjoyed making the Pine Cone Christmas Trees I mentioned earlier, just think of the fun you and your family can have creating Christmas ornaments!

While web surfing this evening, I came across a great site to help you get started. Visit Making Christmas Ornaments I loved the pictures, and the directions are excellent.

Well, this Thanksgiving, I didn’t have to do all of the cooking!! Yippee!! Many of my friends confided that they weren’t totally involved with the preparation of the holiday meal either. Potluck seems to be a popular trend, and I can see why. Let’s face it, usually, the hostess is involved with all or most of the cleanup, and that can be so exhausting.

I have many activities planned for this blog, so I decided to also display some of my craft and recipe ideas on other pages. Your children will really love becoming involved in making the Pine Cone Christmas Tree. It’s such a wonderful way to bring families, friends and communities together.

Our family really enjoyed participating in this project as well. In fact, one year we even enlisted the help of other friends and relatives to make enough finished hoiday pine cone trees for the residents of a nursing home in our community.

Okay…. Get ready for a dessert or salad that will put a smile on the faces of your guests. As I mentioned in my other craft post, I will be posting the recipes, crafts and other activities on other pages.

The Holiday Frozen Fruit Salad Delight recipe has been in our family for over 30 years. My mom received it from a dear friend many years ago when she was young. I have served this salad/dessert with ham, turkey, chicken and vegetarian plate main dishes with excellent results. This salad is so light and attractive that it can be used as a dessert as well. It’s perfect for all of the upcoming holidays. Delicious!

Use my free printable AMC Montessori Bingo Game to present lessons in grammar. First, download the entire game by visiting Free Montessori Grammar Bingo Game This game, designed to be used with Modern Montessori at Home: A Creative Teaching Guide for Children Six through Nine Years of Age and Modern Montessori at Home II: A Creative Teaching Guide for Children 10 through 12 Years of Age, contains all of the directions, grammar symbol printouts, game cards, and free templates in English and Spanish!! All of the work has been done for you. 🙂

Use the game templates included with your free game .pdf download to create your own Montessori holiday grammar bingo game. Select a holiday theme, and then study the paragraphs enclosed with the game. For this exercise, your child will select Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or
some other holiday topic.

Click here for complete instructions on how to present this holiday grammar bingo game for children.

Wednesday, I had a conversation with several college age foreign exchange students representing South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to chat with two other foreign exchange students from El Salvador and Indonesia. Although the students appreciate the holiday, they couldn’t help but also giggle about our annual turkey celebration. Many of these students live in dorms or apartments and found out last year that they just couldn’t think of enough creative ways to eat and use all of the left over turkey. So, we had some fun discussing various ways to prepare the leftovers, plus talked a bit about their favorite dish and holiday traditions.

You, too, can plan a day to have a multicultural turkey celebration. Plan a unit study for your children focusing on maybe three countries at a time.

Part I features lesson plans,activities, recipes and more. Learn about Danish Christmas traditions and find concise, well written historical information accompanied by pictures showing the sights, traditions and recipes of Christmastime in Denmark. You’ll even find directions for making the Danish paper hearts. Or, spend some time learning about Greek and Cretan Christmas customs. These are just a few of many resources you will find in the first part of this newsletter.

Continue reading Part II where you will learn about the significance of the Parol at Parol and Christmas Lanterns of the Philippines; use the material from one of the Christmas study units to create a Christmas dinner – Brazilian style!
This represents just a sampling of the many other activities, lessons and recipes packed in the second half of this newsletter.